


should have just held my tongue

by TheGodWith5Yen



Series: the blood stuck beneath his fingernails [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Canonical Character Death, Dreams and Nightmares, Family, Gen, Jason Todd Has Issues, Memories, Mild Blood, Paranormal, Recovering From Death, Resurrected Jason Todd, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 08:59:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19809010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGodWith5Yen/pseuds/TheGodWith5Yen
Summary: Whispers consumed his dreams.They leaked in from the sides, by open mouths, nothing more and nothing less. They spoke other each other, a static much like the white noise of wandering around a store, growing in unbearable noise as they grew louder and louder, attempting to be heard.Jason hated it.He’d like to say that this was some sort of new development, but if he thought clearly enough, it was something that seemed to always be with. Though- well-If he was completely honest, the life he lived before- before he died and was buried and resurrected- was a bit hazy. When he tried to think back on it, all that came was a blurry field of half memories like crappy old film- hands holding his face, an orange with cloves stuck into its bumpy skin held close to his nose, a small smile that he knew was Bruce’s, a bright t-shirt connected to the warm dark arms of Dick, strokes of a paintbrush against his cheek, a book clutched close to his chest as tears ran down his cheeks and onto his jeans. Maybe what he thought was real wasn’t. How was he supposed to know?





	should have just held my tongue

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I got inspired by jasontod on tumblr who talked about a paranormal Jason after coming back from the dead sooo I somewhat wrote about that? This was fun :3 hope you guys like it!
> 
> title from Numb by Meg Myers

Whispers consumed his dreams. 

They leaked in from the sides, by open mouths, nothing more and nothing less. They spoke other each other, a static much like the white noise of wandering around a store, growing in unbearable noise as they grew louder and louder, attempting to be heard. 

Jason hated it. 

He’d like to say that this was some sort of new development, but if he thought clearly enough, it was something that seemed to always be with. Though- well-

If he was completely honest, the life he lived  _ before _ \- before he died and was buried and resurrected- was a bit hazy. When he tried to think back on it, all that came was a blurry field of half memories like crappy old film- hands holding his face, an orange with cloves stuck into its bumpy skin held close to his nose, a small smile that he knew was Bruce’s, a bright t-shirt connected to the warm dark arms of Dick, strokes of a paintbrush against his cheek, a book clutched close to his chest as tears ran down his cheeks and onto his jeans. Maybe what he thought was real wasn’t. How was he supposed to know? 

Jason was glad he was long past panic attacks at the mere thought of these things, of not knowing anything truly real about him. He knew  _ enough _ , enough about his anger that had been passed to him, enough about the day he had died, enough for others to think ‘oh yes, Jason is normal enough, death hadn't affected him all too much.’ A load of bull. 

He lay awake, staring at the corner of his dark bedroom, the edges of his mind still hearing the whispers, persistent and quiet, edging off into nothing but background noise the longer he stared up. After a few more minutes, he gave up his silent internal battle and sat up, reaching a hand out to search for his phone, to keep himself awake instead of drifting back to sleep where they would pester him and talk and talk and talk until he wanted to rip off his ears.

Jason had tried once- ripping off his ears. It had been a low point of his, blood had dried around his ears and in between his fingernails. He had gone into a sort of dissociative state as he had vixated on his blood, the overwhelming urge to lick at it nearly winning over before he had blinked himself out of it and had quickly took a shower, thoroughly disgusted with himself. 

It was ten minutes before he threw his phone at the wall, got up, changed into a pair of jeans faded with all the times he had shoved into the washer and a hoodie, and strolled out of his place. As he stood outside,minutes later, in front of his apartment building, he watched as his breath formed a small cloud in front of him, the white dancing about before it dissipated into nothing. 

He gazed up at the streetlights, watching as they flickered as he strolled past. His steps were near silent in the unusually quiet night. It took a few more minutes for him to hear more- loud exaggerated laughter, the clinking of heels, the loud bump of music that Jason could feel in his chest even if he couldn’t quite make out the music with his ears. He found himself gravitating towards there, towards the sounds that felt like a beacon. He was just a moth whose attention was caught by an open flame- if this had anything he could possibly shut down with his fists, then he was excited to see what was there. 

Women in large faux fur jackets and gold chains around their necks lazed around the front stairs of a large building, passing a joint around their group, laughing into their shoulders and behind their hands that shone with rings and bright nail polish. One of the women caught sight of Jason and waved him over with an easy smile pulling at her purple lips. Her short blonde hair was frizzy with condensation in the air, hair stuck to her cheek. 

“Wanna take a quick hit?” She asked as she dropped her chin onto her knees, still smiling at Jason. 

Deciding to roll with it, Jason sat down next to her, “Sure. Thanks.”

Bright green light illuminated from the building, lighting up their shiny makeup and jewelry and dresses. It was mesmerizing; it was unnervingly familiar. Jason watched as they passed the joint around. 

“What’s this party about?” Jason asked, nodding his head towards the door behind them. 

The woman with the short blonde hair reached over and twirled one of his white curls around her fingers. “We’re celebrating. Someone we knew got kicked into prison by Red Hood. Or, well- he got his ass handed him a few months back and the pigs finally put him away for good. Kind of a shame Hood didn’t get to kill him there and then, but I guess he got a shitty lawyer so thank Aphrodite.”

“Aphrodite? Huh.” Jason mused with a smile of his own, enjoying the feeling of the woman's hand playing with his hair. Flashes of memories passed through his mind- the hands of Talia al Ghul running through his hair as she shushed him and she pressed her lips to his forehead, Bruce’s large hands with scars and calluses reaching over to tug at a strand with a laugh, his mother massaging his head as she washed his hair with tear free shampoo. “Cute.”

“I’ve been saying that since I was a kid and learned about mythology. I wanted to worship the gods as well. I wonder if she knows I do. I hear that she’s real, that Wonder Woman has met her before. The world’s wonderfully fascinating like that, don’t you think?” Her wide eyes, bright blue with obvious contacts, blinked at him. 

Jason took hold of the joint and took a long drag. He hadn't smoked weed in a while, but there was a comfort to it he always enjoyed- his limbs felt loose, his whole being relaxed- something cigarettes could never bring to him. “Anything with Wonder Woman is wonderful,” Jason replied as he placed the joint between her lips. “I’m Jason by the way.”

The woman slowly blew the smoke towards his face with a teasing smile. “Sunflower. Nice to meet you Jason. Hey,” she passed along the dwindling joint, “your eyes are like a cats.” Her hand moved, her thumb placed underneath his eye as she looked closely to his eye. “Wow. So bright.”

He closed his eyes. “I’m sure the gods hear you.”

Sunflower’s hand dropped from his face. “That would be nice. To be heard for once on this forsaken earth. Do you ever wonder what other planets hold? Where do those Green Lanterns travel to, do they see planets lovelier than we can imagine?” 

Despite the part of himself that wanted to say the truth- most times the Green Lanterns went to planets that were impoverished and worn, worse even then their own planet- he opened his eyes and smiled lazily at her as he listened to her talk, soon joined in by her friends, who weren’t as invested in what she spoke about, but humored her anyway. As one- a woman with black hair tied in intricate braids around her hair who introduced herself as Ivory- passed Jason a newly rolled joint, she shivered as his hand brushed hers.

“You’re fucking cold. Let me get you a jacket.” Ivory stood up, shaking herself out a little bit. 

Jason took a quick hit before handing the joint to Sunflower, who happily took it. “I’m not cold, it’s fine Ivory.” 

The woman rolled her eyes and huffed out, “Oh honey, don’t give me that manly I-don’t-get-cold bullshit. Come on, that thin little sweater of yours has to have you freezing. Come on.” She stood, waiting for Jason to stand and follow her inside of the building. Small groups of other women were sitting about playing cards as they drank and others were dancing along to the loud music. Ivory took hold of his wrist. Jason could see her mouth moving in complaint of his lack of body heat, but he couldn’t hear a word out of her mouth over the beat of the music that reverberated through his chest. They reached a pile of coats, Ivory grabbed one- bright pink with little gold colored sequins forming hearts all over it- and draped it over his shoulders with a smile.

Despite never being able to feel a change of temperature, Jason smiled back at Ivory and held the coat close to him. When the night began to make itself close to day, Jason walked a few of the women to their homes, still wearing the pink coat Ivory had given him, his mind far away from the whispers of his dreams. 

The alleyway was wet with tears. 

They streamed down the sides of the buildings, seeped underneath his bare feet, soaked the whole street until he was trudging through it all with a purpose that didn’t feel completely clear in his mind.

Jason didn’t know how he knew it was tears, it just was. The whispers were just that- whispers that didn’t penetrate, their disembodied mouths close to the edge of the alley, barely moving an inch as they tried to vie for Jason’s attention. Jason stopped walking suddenly as he stared ahead at the never ending alley. 

The mouth was outlined by dark red lipstick. He could see teeth- white and perfect despite the speck of lipstick on one of them. Suddenly, he felt a pull deep inside his chest, pushing him forward, closer and closer, until he was standing right in front of the mouth, the tears around him gone, his bare feet dry. He couldn’t see whoever it was this mouth belonged to, but felt an impression-

A pearl necklace clutched between their hands as they fumbled with the clasp, a laugh that was high pitched and ringing, the overwhelming scent of vanilla perfume, pale pink nail polish that made their nose crinkle. Their voice, unlike the many others Jason had heard over the years, was crisp and clear and quietly commanding his whole undivided attention the second their mouth opened and uttered the first syllable.

“Bruce has taken it all very hard hasn’t he? He was always such a sensitive soul. Oh my poor Bruce. Please tell him that I’m at peace, that he’s so very strong and brave. Tell him that it was all worth it. Every minute I lived with him and Thomas was absolutely beautiful. Please tell him. I know this has been very difficult on you, my sweet little Jason, but it’s okay, I will never let the others hurt you in anyway.” A hand reached out, soft against his cheek. 

Jason breathed in the vanilla perfume. His voice was stuck in his throat as he took in these words heavy with time and emotion. Finally he managed out a strangled, “Martha?”

A clatter of noise- pearls scattered about them, a loose hail that made Jason’s heart beat too fast in his chest, his breath caught as he stared at his father’s mother’s dead lips. They were definitely hers, Jason had spent time studying old pictures of his family when he had arrived back, back into himself after years of anguish and anger and fear of not actually  _ knowing _ . Jason had stared at pictures of Martha Wayne, with her lovely auburn hair curling around her jawline and the dark red lipstick she had seemed to adore since nearly every picture she was in she had it on her full lips. 

Jason had once asked Alfred about Martha, late at night when he had arrived a little bloody and wanting to forget about everything else in the world. They had been in the kitchen, Jason attempting to do his best as he clumsily balled up cookie dough in his shaking hands. Alfred had said many things that night, but now all he could remember was- “Martha Wayne loved vanilla, she would dab little bits of it on her wrists sometimes whenever she came into the kitchen. She was very peculiar, something her son inherited from her I must say.”

“I- I’ll tell him. I’ll tell him Martha, okay? I’ll tell him. But- I don’t understand, is this… is this real?” Jason closed his eyes and pressed him cheek harder against Martha Wayne’s open palm, unsure if any of this was real, if he was finally actually losing his mind after all this time of having a failing mind.

Martha clucked her tongue and sighed, full of exasperation and something Jason was hesitant to call sadness. “Oh Jason, my sweet boy, you still don’t understand what you are? After all this time?”

As Jason opened his mouth to ask her what she was going on about, what the fuck this even was, he found himself awake, back in the cave underneath Wayne Manor, where he had fallen asleep on the comfortable couch he was sure was there entirely because of Alfred, after a long night out on patrol. It wasn’t unusual for him to stay the night, though he would have much rather gone back to his apartment since he always had such a hard time getting himself to close his eyes and actually  _ sleep _ in the manor. Actually, this had to be the first time in years he managed to sleep here and not just lie down and have his mind wander around in circles. 

The thought struck a chord inside him as he remembered Martha’s hand on his skin. The memory of it was still on his mind- unlike many others, who felt much too warm to Jason, she had felt  _ normal _ . And, despite it happening while he was asleep, a large part of him was undoubtedly sure that not a moment of that- whatever the fuck  _ that  _ was- wasn’t real. Martha Wayne had spoken to him.

But- how?

Was this what these whispers always were? Was it the voices of the damned, dead and reaching for anything, reaching towards the dead boy alive again to hear their pleas, their wishes, their wants, their last words towards someone in the land of the living? It was suddenly all too much, way more than ever before, that Jason stood up and found himself pacing a few steps before he decided to get himself upstairs and into the fridge to see if there was any stockpile of chocolate he could gorge himself on instead of thinking for one more second about how much of a colossal unnatural oddity he was. 

He hated it. He hated all of this so much. Why couldn’t he have stayed dead?

Everything- everything would have been  _ better  _ if he had stayed six feet underground in that stupid suit and tie in that coffin of his. 

Suit and tie and belt. Leather belt. It had been leather, the metal buckle had nearly collapsed in his hands as he dug as hard as he could through the stupid fucking coffin, then he had decided to fuck it as he was losing his breath, losing himself, desperate in a way he never was before, digging at the dirt and the fabric with his hands, digging digging digging until his hands were stained brown, dark dirt and blood underneath his ragged fingernails.

Jason blinked-

A light pointed towards him and he stared blankly as someone yelped and a crash sounded, the light dropping away from sight. 

“Shit! Jason- what the fuck was that?” 

It took Jason a few more seconds to process- he was in the manor’s kitchen, sitting in the dark in front of the refrigerator with bars of chocolate in his hands, his nails digging into them, he could taste some of it in his mouth. It was bitter- the kind best used for baking. He glanced over- Dick had walked into the kitchen, his phone was on the tile, most likely cracked. 

“Shouldn’t you be with your wife and daughter?” Jason whispered as he stared back down at his hands, dark with chocolate. His lips wobbled, which caused him to bite at his lower lip. Regardless of it, of the distraction he wanted away from the emotional toiling inside his chest, tears still welled up in his eyes. 

“Jason, what the fuck are you doing? What- your eyes reflected the light I’m- Jason? Are you okay?” Dick slowly walked over, his phone forgotten as he crouched down next to Jason, his much too warm hand coming up to grip at the back of Jason’s neck, a soothing weight that made something inside Jason snap.

Tears fell. “I should be dead,” He whispered to his hands, too afraid to look into his brothers eyes, too afraid to move. “I should be dead.”

“Jay.” Dick’s voice was broken, unlike Jason who was simply empty. He wrapped his arms around Jason, holding him close as he cried cold tears, his warm body swallowing him up as Jason hiccuped into his brothers shoulders.

A few minutes passed before Jason could find his voice again, still detached and unable to fully process in his mind. “I spoke to Martha. I spoke to her.” He wiped his wet cheeks into Dick’s soft blue pajama shirt. 

Dick was silent for a moment before he said, “I take it you don’t mean Martha Kent?” 

By the time Jason had settled himself down and had properly explained best he could what had happened in his dream, what had been happening to him since he had woken up in a bath of green, maybe even before then since he woke up with a limited amount of air and only his nails and a belt buckle to save him, since he could properly remember, shadowing light filtered into the kitchen. They barely noticed in their distraction, Dick listening intently, until someone cleared their throat. 

Jason blinked up at Alfred, with Damian holding firmly at his dogs collar as he watched them with wide eyes that caused him to actually look his age, and Bruce staring intently at Jason’s hands, still full of chocolate, locked in on them as though the chocolate was a source for whatever was happening. In Jason’s meltdown, Dick hadn't cleaned him up, and Jason had been too out of it to do it. Now, he slowly stood up and dumped the chocolate on the counter. 

“Master Jason are you quite alright?” Alfred rushed over, his hands taking Jason’s as he examined them closely with a frown. Deeming him free of wounds, Alfred grabbed a washcloth and began to wipe away at him arms. 

What a waste of food. 

Then again wasn’t Jason one big waste of space? A being not meant to be walking and talking and breathing and laughing and living?

“What happened?” Bruce demanded as he carried Damian’s large dog out of the house, ignoring the whines the dog made at being pushed out of the warm house. His youngest brother quietly watched from the doorway, still staring at Jason with something that made Jason look away from his the moment he saw them. “Jason?” Bruce’s voice was full of worry, an unspoken fear, as he turned away from the door and back towards Jason, towards the mess in the otherwise immaculate kitchen. 

Jason stared at his father, at his messy dark hair that was a little longer than usual, at the shadow of a beard growing along his jaw, at the light scar running through his right eyebrow. He thought of Martha Wayne’s soft strong hand and overwhelming scent of vanilla and found himself stumbling over himself saying, “Martha is in peace. She said- she said every second she had with you and Thomas was beautiful. It was all worth it for her, dying for you, that short time living with you. But- Martha is at peace. She wanted you to know that.” 

He glanced over at Bruce, who was staring at Jason with an open mouth and wide eyes. It took him a few tries to get something out of his mouth. “Jason?” 

Jason lay on his bed in his apartment. Exhaustion seeped into his bones. Everything was too much. His fingers played with the nightlight he had picked up from a nearby convenience store- a little green star. It brought back vague memories. Leaning his head against Bruce’s shoulder as he stared up at the stars, his gaze caught by the shining green star in the sky that Bruce had said was probably Hal Jordan flying back into the depths of space. A collection of shining light green stars on a popcorn ceiling.  _ Twinkle twinkle little star how I wonder what you are _ ringing in his ears, sung by a soft voice that made his eyes tear up.

With a sigh, Jason placed the light down onto his bed. 

This morning had been excruciating. He couldn’t believe anyone had seen him that way, let alone Dick and Bruce and Alfred. At least it wasn’t the fucking star child Cassandra- she’d find it as good ammunition for the next time she deemed it necessary to have a battle of morals against him. Or, worse, she’d actually feel  _ sorry _ for him, which Jason was sure he couldn’t deal with if that ever happened. 

Bruce had gone on and on about contacting Constatine, as though he actually wanted anything to do with the man who was possibly near Hal Jordan in terms of annoyances to Bruce. There had been arguing and bickering until, finally, Jason had decided it was time to split. So, he bought a fucking nightlight and a pack of cigarettes and spent most of his day lying in bed, thinking about everything that has ever happened to lead up to this point in his life. 

Jason sat up with a sigh before standing and changing his clothes- a pair of jeans that were a little too short for him so he cuffed them slightly to look like it was intentional and a once white tank top that was now a blotchy pale pink. After a minute, Jason pulled out the pink coat he had gotten a few days before from Ivory and shoved it on. 

As he strolled out, he lit a cigarette and placed it between his lips. It wasn’t long in his wandering that he found a familiar face- Sunflower, with her frizzy blonde hair pulled back from her face with bright pink hair clips and a large gold and black faux fur jacket draped across her shoulders. When Sunflower caught sight of him, she grinned widely and walked over towards him. 

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Jason from the block.” Sunflower rolled her eyes at her own joke and reached over to grab the cigarette from his lips. Her acrylic fingernails scratched slightly at his lips, but he didn’t mind. “How’ve you been sweetheart?”

“Shit.” Jason answered with a smirk on his lips and a shrug of his shoulders. “How about you? Nobody bothering you?”

Sunflower gave him a wry smile, “No way more than usual. But, what can you do. But- back to you- shit? Really? Do you wanna talk about it? I’m a great listener.” She placed the cigarette back between Jason’s lips. There was something so entirely charismatic and true about her that Jason found himself smiling slightly back and agreeing. 

He leaned against a wall, breathing in the acidic tobacco of his cigarette for a few minutes, watching the smoke rise and dance before he broke their silence. The streetlights all turned on, automatic, the one closest to them slowly glowed a pale white before turning up into a bright yellow. “I died a few years back.”

“Heard of weirder shit.” Sunflower answered without a blink of her glittery eyes. 

And wasn’t that the sad truth of this fucked up world? 

“I think I can- I don’t know, talk to the dead? I sleep and hear these voices and last night, my adoptive fathers dead mother talked to me. Before, I could have just said it was nightmares, persistent fucking nightmares that I could live with. But now?” Jason shook his head violently, his head hitting the wall behind a little too hard. Despite the pain that seared, Jason relished that- the fact that he was alive and somewhat normal. That he could  _ feel  _ at last that. 

What a paradox he was. 

Sunflower reached over to run her fingers through his hair, her fingers stopped on his forehead, on the large patch of skin stained white. Her dark eyes watched him for a while. “Hades did good releasing you from the depths of hell. I recognized you the moment I saw you on that street, Jason. I know this must be hard for you, but this was for a reason, right? Maybe the gods gave you this gift so you can protect your people. Don’t you wonder what kind of secrets the dead of our city can tell us? Or-” Sunflower breathed in and shook her head. “Sorry, you probably wanted reassurances. Not a speech.”

Jason shrugged his shoulders and watched as the last of his cigarette tuned into indiscriminable ash between his fingertips. He dropped what was left and pulled out two- one for himself and Sunflower, who took it with that silly smile of hers and a happy thank you passing through her smiling lips. “It’s how you feel.”

“Was she old? Your dad’s mother?” Sunflower asked. 

Jason looked at her eyes, surrounded by bright pink glitter that shone like the stars above. “Nah. She was in her late thirties when she died. Murdered.” 

Sunflower took that in as she blew out a rush of smoke. “What about you? How did you die?” A laugh escaped his lips and he raised an eyebrow at Sunflower, who frowned down at their feet. “Do you remember it? Death?”

That was something everyone was always too afraid to ask, but it was something Jason agonized over. “I remember my death, but not what came after, not until I woke up six feet under. I- I can barely remember living before that, but the day I died, how it happened, that’s the memory I remember the most. Not my mother. Not my family. That- it’s like someone put a film over each memory, some burned, some hazey. My memory used to be so good too. Memorized a lot of shit, had to since I had shit to prove, trying to get a 4.0 in school. Yet- I can’t tell you shit about myself before I was fourteen.”

He closed his eyes and tried to remember something,  _ anything _ . A bright purple shirt with half its buttons undone and long black hair being pulled up in a scrunchie, a pile of books around him, a wrinkled hand reaching to grab a cookie out of his mouth, an arm covered in black reaching out to hold him close and laughter in his ears, a kiss to the tip of his nose, loud music playing as he clutched a thick blanket close to his chest. It grounded Jason. He and Sunflower stayed standing there, smoking, silent for a few more minutes before he asked her about how exactly she prayed to the Greek gods. 

After a while, Jason offered to walk her home if she was thinking of heading back. Sunflower excitedly agreed as she took his arm and asked if he’d like to have a painting of Aphrodite she had done. With a smile, Jason agreed. When they arrived at her apartment, Jason followed her the four flights up. They passed a few teenagers milling about the stairs, playing with their phones and giggling into each other's arms, a few of them greeted Sunflower with a grin and Jason with hard eyes. 

“Who’s this?” A kid, sixteen at most with bad acne covering his cheeks, asked with a frown, looking away from his phone. His chest puffed out and Jason had to give the kid props for trying. 

Sunflower laughed and nudged Jason with her shoulder. “This is my friend Jay. Be nice Pancho, he’s a  _ great _ guy!” 

Her hand reached up to grab at his chin, but Jason evaded her grip. “And gay.” Jason chimed in with a roll of his eyes as he moved past the kid. “Play your game. I’m the least of your worries kid.” He glanced back at the kid, who watched Jason with curious eyes before going back to his game. Sunflower grinned at him and propped herself up on her the tip of her toes to kiss at his temple with a laugh. When they got to her apartment, Jason stayed out in the hallway, waiting for Sunflower to come back out. A nearby lightbulb flickered on and off. Jason stared at it intently as he waited, the fluorescent light staining his vision with its brightness when he turned away.

When she did, she had shed her large jacket and had on a pink and blue sparkly pajama shirt, a small little canvas painting and a necklace in one hand. “Here’s the Aphrodite painting and here’s- well, not to be hypocritical, but this is a Joan of Arc pendant. She’s the-”

“Patron saint of funerals, rape victims, and soldiers.” Jason finished with a whisper. It was one of those facts he knew without knowing how he knew. Was it something he had studied, been intensely interested in that he searched the internet and read books about? He took the painting- a mesh of pinks and blues and Aphrodite standing among it all with dark skin and long waving brown hair that wrapped around herself- and let Sunflower clasp the pendant around his neck. “Thank you Sunflower.” 

She kissed his temple again, close to his pale patch of skin, close to scars- both metaphorical and physical- from years of being himself. “Drop by sometime okay? We’re friends now Jason, if you need anything, I’ll come for you. Promises.” Jason’s chest filled with warmth as he nodded his acknowledgement and left. As he walked away, his fingers fiddled with the pendent around his neck.

The pictures on the wall held his attention- the Titans dressed up in suits and dresses as they clung to each other with laughter on their lips, Koriand’r and Dick cuddling close together, a professional picture of Kory and Dick with their daughter, another with just Mar’i in a little farm-looking outfit on while on the verge of tears, an old picture of Dick as a kid with his parents, Dick on Bruce’s shoulders, Koriand’r and Donna Troy holding each other as though they were teenagers at prom, Dick and Jason posing in front of a fair poster that had a cartoon version of Batman on it as bright blue and pink lighting fell over them. He stared, entranced, until the front door opened and he could hear Dick talking.

Jason glanced back to see Mar’i toddling towards him with a silly little grin, Dick close behind, surprise in his eyes and a sad smile on his lips. With a smile back, Jason reached down to pick up his little niece, the little girl happily giggling as she reached over to kiss at Jason’s cheek. “Thank you Mar’i,” Jason laughed and kissed her nose. He turned towards his brother- who was leaning against the wall next to a picture of him and Kory at their wedding, the pale blue scrubs he wore caught Jason’s attention for a second like it always did when he saw Dick in his work outfits- and asked, “Mind if we talked?” 

“Let me get changed and we’ll talk.” Dick sighed through his nose as he pushed himself off the wall. “Can you give Mar’i some yogurt? We have some vanilla yogurt in there- oh and she’ll ask for strawberries and blueberries, it’s fine. You can just eat the rest if she doesn’t finish.” With that, he turned towards his bedroom and quickly shut the door.

As asked Jason prepared some yogurt for Mar’i, who excitedly told him about her day at the daycare, even if he could barely understand a single word out of her mouth. As he set the bowl in front of her, she reached in with her spoon, proceeding to get her little mouth dirty. It made him laugh slightly as he reached over to clean her up a little, despite her pouts and protests. 

It was stupidly mundane and ultimately unimportant, but he suddenly wondered if he would ever be able to have something like  _ this _ . And- it really was stupid because Jason didn’t care much for children and had never even wanted them. There was no reason for him to want a child of his own. Yet, he couldn’t help but wonder. 

An arm wrapped around his shoulders and Dick’s fingers played with the hoop earring on Jason’s ear. “What did you want to talk about Jay?” Jason glanced up at his brother, with his wide earnest eyes that looked  _ tired _ , with the dark bags under them, with that forced smile of his on his face.

Jason opened his mouth and closed it before deciding to fuck it. “Do you think I should talk to Constatine?” He pulled away from Dick and sat on the sofa, his hand reaching to twist at the Joan of Arc pendant Sunflower had gifted to him. Before Dick could answer, Jason found himself speaking again. “I thought that it was just nightmares. Normal shit from coming back to life. Yet- do you think a part of hell stayed with me?”

Dick sat next to Jason, his elbows propped up on his knees, his chin in his hands. “No. There’s no fucking way you ended up in hell.”

The response was so stupid Jason snorted and shoved at Dick’s shoulder. “Pretty sure I did something back then that hell would have taken a liking to. Jacking shit for one.” When Dick gave him a dirty look, Jason sighed and shook his head. “Right, right, just. It scared me, talking to Martha, dissociating like that in the fucking manor. Letting  _ Bruce  _ seeing me like that. Alfred.  _ Fuck _ \- everytime I think of calling him and saying  _ something _ I freeze up. I never wanted him to see me like that. To know I’m fuckng broken. Alfred doesn’t deserve to hurt anymore. I hate worrying him.”

A hand, burning hot on his chilled skin, placed on his cheek. A pathetic whimper escaped his lips.

“This is hard. We’ve- we’ve never dealt with anything like this before, I know. I know. But we’ll figure this out. Whether it’s me and you. Or us and Dad. Or us and Constatine. We’ll figure this out, even if this feels so late in the game. Okay Jason? Okay Jay?” Dick raised his chin and made Jason make eye contact with his dark brown eyes. 

A light flickered overhead, causing dark shadows to fall over his brothers face. 

“Okay.” Jason whispered. His mouth was still open, grasping for more words, when Mar’i called out for her father, and Dick quickly stood up. “This will be fine.” He said to the air next to him. “I’ll be fine.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Please tell me what you think, come talk to me @dykekoriandrs on tumblr, leave a kudos and comment <3


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